Adactus Housing Group is a Registered Social Landlord managing over 13,000 properties across the North West of England with the majority located in Manchester, Chorley and Wigan. The Group, which currently has a turnover in excess of £71m, is comprised of three subsidiaries: Adactus Housing Association, Beech Housing Association and Chorley Community Housing.

With the 360° Tenant Portal from 1st Touch, Adactus tenants can now use their own devices, 24/7/365 to register for the system, review rent accounts, repairs history and tenancy agreements, request repairs, download rent statements, set up energy advice visits and make contact with the team at Adactus. By directing customers online, the significant time and resources saved enables call-centre operatives to spend more time with those in greatest need.

Adactus are also using data to drive alerts for their customers to advise them of overdue appointments, broken agreements or important announcements. They are also using the portal to target specific groups with campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the various services and initiatives Adactus operate e.g. community grant applications, money advice service and hate crime awareness. Customers are also able to find out about events and more in their local area as regional Facebook pages are also displayed in the portal.

1st Touch was chosen to supply the 360° Tenant Portal as it has the functionality to help Adactus deliver on its comprehensive and evolving customer care strategy. The system was also chosen as there was an existing integration with Aareon who supply Adactus’ back-office housing-management technology. Adactus also has in-depth knowledge of 1st Touch, having invested successfully in their mobile Responsive Repairs system some years previously.

Suzannah Robinson, Digital Projects Manager at Adactus Group believes the successful take up of the new 360° Tenant Portal now delivers significant additional benefits for customers, noting, “In augmenting our call-centre system we were keen to see a rapid take up by customers for this new online alternative. In preparation, we carried out extensive customer testing by observing tenants using a prototype. Their feedback helped us develop a user-friendly, easy to navigate website, bristling with features our tenants asked for.

“Naturally, we are delighted that over 1,500 customers have signed up so far and furthermore we are very pleased that many seem to making good use of the system’s functionality. We designed the website with “mobile first” in mind and interestingly google analytics has revealed that 57% are accessing the technology by mobile and the most popular activity, to date, is reviewing tenancy and rent information. We shall keep monitoring the system’s usage over time to see how we can enhance the service even further.”

For his part, Greg Johns CEO of 1st Touch welcomed the news adding, “Our 360° Tenant Portal now enables Adactus customers to submit a wide range of service requests online 24/7/365 using their own devices. Management also has an all round business view of key touch-points and statistics, enabling even smarter decision-making.

“Adactus has recognised the potential of the 360° Tenant Portal and has used the technology to add effectively to their existing customer-care interface. By passing the 1,500 customer mark so quickly, it is a tribute to how effective the new portal is perceived to be by Adactus tenants. More importantly, we are also impressed to see the way it is being used too. All in all, it has proved a real success story.